


if i woke up with you in the morning

by nyxishere



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, F/M, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sharing a Bed, Short & Sweet, have some roy/riza angst and comfort cause i sure need it, platonic my ASS but u can't date ur military superior or whatever, this came to me in a quarantined vision okay, you want some "platonic" heartbreak? sure babe i got u, you want some unrequited pining? i'll give u unrequited pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23979148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyxishere/pseuds/nyxishere
Summary: the day after hughes' funeral, it does rain.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 2
Kudos: 61





	if i woke up with you in the morning

**Author's Note:**

> title is from gracie abrams' sadgirl anthem, stay. go listen to it on loop at 2am and you'll begin to approximate my emotional state while writing this nonsense.

The day after Maes Hughes is promoted to Brigadier General, Riza goes to work in the rain. She hasn't slept―her back always grows inflamed when the weather is humid, and she can't erase from her mind Mustang's final, exhausted words to her last night. He'd let her drive him home from the graveyard when she requested to do so―a rare allowance―but he'd directed her to alter their route without explanation. She'd sighed, thinking of the narrow studio with its bare furnishings, and he'd seemed to read her mind. 

"This city's so damn quiet. Almost makes a man unable to stand being alone." He'd been staring out the passenger window, hat still yanked low over his eyes. "Should I go out for a drink?"

There had been, many years ago, a younger version of Riza that would have been flustered at any hint that the Colonel sought her company―the same girl who had half-grown up with him, who had studied and dreamed with him. But Riza has long since laid that girl to rest.

"Sir, drinking alone is never wise in times like these. You should get some sleep."

He'd taken off his hat to scrub gloved hands through his hair, mussing it into its normal careless state. "Should I?"

She hadn't answered, and he'd only sighed again. "Pull over here, please."

It was her own street. She almost hadn't noticed. "I'll see you tomorrow, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir." She'd stepped out of the car to trade places with him, waiting until he walked around to her side to say goodnight. "Thank you, sir. I appreciate not needing to walk home."

He only shrugged and stepped around her. "Don't expect it to become an everyday occurrence. I can't have anyone thinking I've traded in my career to drive public transit." 

She had wanted to smile, but could not, and when he saw her face, he had rested a hand briefly on her shoulder. 

"Really, Colonel. Please go home."

Sometime during the long night, the 14-year-old Riza had resurrected herself, longing to redo that last moment on the sidewalk―to hold him, to be held herself. But this is foolishness, she knows, and so she shuts away the thoughts in a box at the back of her mind and goes to work early, while Black Hayate is still sleeping curled on his rug by the window. 

She walks through the early-lit streets feeling almost outside her body. It's as though a portion of her soul is still back in her studio apartment, curled in the lofted bed and only listening to the rain on the thin glass, instead of feeling it drench her hair and slide down the back of her neck. In the bathroom just off Mustang's office, she wrings out a splash of rainwater into the sink, pinning her hair up again and wiping her face dry. It is enough. The colonel will not notice.

But he isn't there, although the desk attendant at the main doors mentions that he arrived early. She paces, uneasy, in-between piles of paperwork and checking over Mustang's itinerary for the week. Her coworkers file in quietly around nine, each varying degrees of serious or downcast. The colonel does not arrive. She feels like a sheepdog without a purpose, but she reins it in all through lunch and well into the afternoon. 

As the others are preparing to pack up for the day, a girl pops in from the hall. 

"Is Lieutenant Hawkeye here? I have a message for her!" She seems frazzled, but not upset. "I'm so sorry, I was supposed to get this to you earlier, but I got caught up re-shelving in one of the library research halls and I―"

"It's fine." Riza takes the note quickly; it's a scrawled message from Mustang. _Researching today. Won't be in much. Keep everyone on task for me, will you?_

"Wait, don't go." Riza follows the girl out into the hall. "Do you know if he already headed home? I need to get his signature for a few things."

"Oh, no! He's been in the third filing room all day. I was supposed to do some cleaning but he was still there when I checked half an hour ago―"

"Thank you." Riza leaves almost before the girl is finished speaking. The door to the third filing room is cracked open, and Riza pushes it open to find herself standing in near darkness. The floor is littered with open books and stacks of paper; just beyond the fall of light from the door, she can see a figure slumped over one of the desks. 

"Colonel." She steps over the piles on the floor and turns on the light at the desk―Roy flinches at the sound, but doesn't wake, his head resting on his arm and a stack of files. She sighs, double checking the room with a quick glance―no one else is here. The little girl in the back of Riza's mind rises up again to lay her hand on Roy's cheek, but Riza shuts down the urge and folds her hands behind her back instead. "Colonel. Sir, wake up. It's nearly time to head home." 

He stirs a little, reaching for his watch on the desk and finding her hand instead. "Mmm. I'll......I'll be up in a minute." He sounds half-feverish, and she caves, reaching for his forehead. His hair is more disheveled than usual, but he's not running a fever. "Colonel. Please, come on."

His eyes open, unfocused, then go wide. He shoots to his feet, knocking over the chair and stumbling back over it in an attempt to get away from her. She catches him by his jacket to stabilize them both, and watches as his dreams seep out, panic in his rushed breathing and the grab for gloves that are in his pocket. 

"Sir! It's alright. It's only me, Lieutenant Hawkeye. You were dreaming." Of course he was dreaming. As though everyone who made it out of Ishvala alive didn't leave sleep behind them.

"Damn. Forgive me, Lieutenant." Her hand is still gripping his uniform―she lets it go. He wipes a hand over his face and picks up the chair. "Let's go. I'll finish this tomorrow."

He passes her the keys again, and immediately falls asleep in the passenger's seat. He jolts up when they bump over a noisy can, sweating and pale, gasping for air like a little kid. He used to have attacks like these in the early days of Ishvala, but she'd assumed they were gone. 

"Sir, I don't think you're well. Where should I take you?"

"Uhh..." He rubs his forehead with his hands. "I―I'm fine, dammit. Just drop me off at home."

"Sir, what do you need?"

He hesitates a long moment. "I just need a friend, and some sleep." His head is already bobbing against the window. She thinks of the lone couch and empty cupboards of his apartment, and against her better judgement, she drives to her home. 

"Will this be alright, sir? I don't believe you've eaten today, and you're not in the condition to be alone."

He only nods, and follows her up the narrow stairs to her apartment, bringing his notes from the library with him. He stoops to pet Black Hayate, and spreads his papers out over the table without asking while she starts heating up the soup she made two nights ago. When she returns from the shop downstairs with bread, he's sitting so still that only his fingers scratching Hayate's ears make her certain he's still awake. When the food is ready, Riza clears away his work as though putting away a child's toys, stacking them neatly on the counter and setting down a bowl for him. "I assume this is related to Hughes?"

"Yeah." He even sounds ragged, but he's eating. "I'll explain when I'm sure."

"I'll be waiting." She answers, running the pot under the sink and going to sit with him, feeding corners of her bread to Hayate to ensure he loves her better than this familiar visitor.

"He was my best friend, Riza." 

"Yes, sir."

"Beyond him and you, I have no one in the world I love so well." He starts at his own words, shamefaced, staring at the table. "Forgive me, Lieutenant."

"There is nothing to forgive." The girl in Riza's heart is trembling, weeping for their lost friend and their heartache. She wishes, for a moment, that she could go back even to those strange and terrible days of secrets being tattooed on her back in scarlet, of her father's old apprentice sitting quietly beside the table she bent over, coat clutched over her chest, to learn how to transform himself into a weapon. They were an awful pair, the two of them. The trigger and the bullet. 

She wants to weep, so she stands instead. "You can stay the night here, if you'd like. I can drive you home, too, but I know it's hard to dream alone."

She can feel him watching her, but refuses to look back at him. If she does, her heart will be all there in her eyes, and she cannot bear for him to see it. She thought she had conquered this part of herself. She knows better than to try and let it live.

He sighs. "Thanks for the offer. Should I take it up?"

"I don't think you should drive just now; you're likely to fall asleep at the wheel. But I'm willing to take you if that's what you'd prefer."

"And let you walk back at night, in the rain? A poor show of gratitude." He laughs hollowly. "Do you mind if I wash up?"

While he showers, Riza fixes herself a bed on the little couch under the loft and turns off most of the lights, setting out a large shirt she wears on her days off in case he wants it. After all, she's worn his clothing before―back in Ishvala, when she'd bled all over her white military-issued coat, and even before then, when he'd walked in on her father torching the secrets of flame alchemy off her back in one of his fits of paranoia. Roy had covered her with his own jacket then, trying to protect the burns from the ash and dust in the room as he screamed at her father. She sits to watch the rain still pelting down and pats Hayate's head absently. She's exhausted, maybe as much as he is, now that she thinks about it. She'll just sit here and wait for him to get out so she can wash up, and ask him if there's anything else he needs.

When she wakes up, the room is chilly, and the spare blanket she left neatly folded has been drawn up over her shoulders. She rises, disoriented, and feels her way through the dark to wash her face and change. It's three am, the clock in the bathroom informs her. She let her hair down, finally drying from the rain, and tiptoes out to pull on a pair of shorts and a shirt to sleep in. She hears Hayate's tail thump quietly as she tosses her dirty clothes in the laundry bin, and stands for a moment in the middle of the room, trying to decipher what she's missing. 

A soft groan comes from her bed above the window―the Colonel is dreaming again. That must have been what woke her. She hesitates, trying to decide whether or not to wake him. He could lash out at her again, like in the library, but then she hears him toss and groan again, and she realizes she'd rather be attacked by him in the middle of the night than try to sleep through his nightmares. Climbing the narrow ladder to her bed, she reaches out to find his shoulder in the dark. 

"Colonel. It's only a dream, sir. Roy."

She feels him stiffen and relax again.

"Riza?" His voice is low and half-asleep, but he finds her hand in the dark, like some base instinct he hasn't managed to forget. "Thank God it's you."

Something about the horribleness of it all―Maes dead, little Elicia Hughes crying at the funeral, Roy suffering through old memories in her bed―snaps the divide between young Riza and the woman she's become. She's grateful to the dark for concealing her tears, but Roy rolls onto one elbow and reaches to cup her face, his thumb brushing her damp cheek. 

"Oh, Riza." He says. There are other words there, she can tell, but he chooses not to say them. Instead she hears him make room for her, feels his hand pull hers towards him and into the empty space waiting for her. "Oh, Riza." For once―just this once―she lets herself be in love with him, as he pulls the covers over her and wraps his arms around her, holding her even in her grief. Just this one time, she cries in his arms, and lets him stroke her hair and whisper again and again, like a prayer: _it will be alright. i'll find out who did this. i'll take care of you. i'll take care of them all―i promise. i promise._ As she falls asleep again, she feels him press a careful kiss to her forehead. 

In the morning, they will wake up in each other's arms and extricate themselves, shamefaced, uncertain, but tonight all they have is each other. It will be enough. It must be enough for now. 


End file.
